


War Drums

by adesidera



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series), Fantasy High
Genre: Coming of Age, I Tried, Memory Magic, Multi, Pining, Season 1 Compliant, this series i stg, uses some elements of season 2
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-16 22:48:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21279002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adesidera/pseuds/adesidera
Summary: Fabian raises up a hand to touch her cheek, and Aelwen fully meets his gaze unperturbed. He dives in to kiss her, not in the same way she first did, all passion and ferocity, but with devotion and soft admiration.She notices this and promptly vanishes in a mist, leaving only the faint smell of the sea. He feels nothing but the bitter satisfaction of being proven right.(In the back of his mind, he chases the lips of someone with no face, the smell of saltwater and elf wine imprinted forever and always)





	War Drums

Fabian Aramais Seacaster doesn’t know how to love in any other way than through the sheer physicality of it. From the deep paternal ties with his father achieved through the sweaty exchange of blows, or from his friends back in middle school who he rough-housed with, he’s never seen love as anything but a fight (_ whether that be for glory or his father’s attention or who knows what, he knows that this _ _ is _ _ the reason why he trains so much _).

Love, as he soon learned, only left destruction and bruises in its wake, and peeking into the master bedroom he looks at his mother’s alcoholism and sensory deprivation tanks wondering what it took to marry a man as great as his father.

It’s why when he’s set off with his first adventuring party, he promptly becomes schooled regarding that matter. 

_ ( Fig, Gorgug, Adaine, Kristen, and Riz. The six of them sitting down in detention waiting for time to pass with Mr. Gibbons, little did they know they’ll be stuck with each other for keeps ) _

-

He may not be vocal about it, but he’s secretly glad that he’s found a group of people he could safely say is his own. Nearing the end of his first year of high school, he’s started to see that there’s a heart to combat and tussles, pushing each other up, rather than down. They really did compliment each other’s strengths and eradicated each other’s weaknesses, as Professor Aguefort once told the whole academy. Words like _fealty_, loyalty, and _brotherhood_ pop up in his mind while he slashes an enemy with his rapier, and he tries to hide his smile in the midst of combat. He can feel their care and worry manifest each time they cover for one another in the battlefield, slightly heartened by the thought, he hits back at his enemy with renewed vigor.

-

When Fabian’s sinks a sword to his father’s heart, there are faint memories of that specific conversation with his father telling him that driving a sword through his heart would be the last thing Fabian does. He shakes them off as he worries for his friends, distracting himself with the roar of the Hangman's engine as he flies toward the school.

-

They face-off Kalvaxus, his blood roaring from the thrill of the fight. He looks at Dayne with his one good eye and grips the sword of his father tighter in his hands.

One deus ex machina in the form of time magic later, and they now face the half-eaten corpse of a dragon. Fabian’s sure he hears the sounds of horns and trumpets, glorious and triumphant in their victory. Six bruised and wounded faces turn to each other smiling with glee and exhaustion, and they know deep down that they’re now officially members of each other’s family, the Bad Kids, and Fabian finds a different kind of love in each of them.

-

The _ after _ aftermath of the whole thing is a lot more mundane than one would hope for, as underaged heroes apparently still need to go adventuring school.

With a majority of the popular kids either dead or captured, the whole social hierarchy gets thrown into a frenzy. He and Fig, already significantly more popular than the rest of their crew, are boosted up to the top, dragging their friends up with them.

Days pass by in a haze, requirements and classes all blending together. He’s started sparring with his mother again, now that she’s taking an honest shot at sobriety. It’s quieter now, with his father gone. Bill Seacaster’s crew are no longer hidden in the small nooks and hidden rooms of the house, though there was one time, shortly after the whole dragon thing, where he lets what’s left of his father's crew into the house to get drunk off the barrels of mead, and sing to their heart's content, their own personal way of saying goodbye.

He knows that it was about dying with dignity and honor, but he can’t seem to shake the jarring reality of his mortality. He’s not a full elf like his mother, and he may have a higher life expectancy than the others, but he’s a mortal through and through. For a whole week, he sat in silence, wondering what it would be like to be the one to take the blade through his heart. He tries to shake it off by pushing his physical limits, forcing his body to coordinate with one eye missing.

The absence of his usual aplomb causes the others to worry, and it was only after a small scuffle, that Kristen told him that he reminded her of her Spirit Guardians (the beefed up philosophers) but in a letterman jacket, that he could feel himself smile. A tension that was apparently present in the whole group broke, and Fabian could feel things settling back to normality.

_ (From that day on, whenever Fabian gets lost in his own head, quiet and subdued, his usual vibrato gone, Riz gently squeezes his forearm to drag him back from wherever he is at the moment) _

**Author's Note:**

> i never wouldve thought that my first fic after years of not writing would be in this niche fandom
> 
> quick shoutout to @friendly_ficus's fic for the little blurb that eventually led me down a 10k word spiral that yall have to suffer tru. im currently fixing up and polishin summ bits n pieces so u can bet ur asses that ill be posting the rest after i actually figure out what to do with all of it


End file.
